Lossy compression of forwarding tables

Abstract

In one embodiment, a network switch includes a memory to store an input routing table including input routes and associated logical port groups, such that each input route is associated with a logical port group, and processing circuitry to generate a hardware multi-path routing table having a capacity smaller than the input routing table, cluster the input routes into group clusters based on similarities between the associated logical port groups, compress the logical port groups into a subset of compressed logical port groups by modifying port indicators, the subset of compressed logical port groups corresponding to the group clusters, add entries in the hardware multi-path routing table corresponding to the subset of compressed logical port groups, and map the input routes to the entries in the hardware multi-path routing table.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.